THREE PART SONNET

WOUND

This fabric binds the memory,

Pressed deep like sweat on skin.

They dressed me in repentance,

But clothed me in their sin.

For you, my complex lover.

I can’t help but empathise.

Your loathing cloaked in silence

A child taught they must disguise.

A Queer thing to carry.

Let me put our love away.

Let it splinter from the spine

Let me walk without its strain.

Prick by prick, the memory seeps

Love burned out by the demons we keep.

WITNESS

My beautiful boy, my darling girl.

I saw you move through

A borrowed body.

I told you I wouldn’t run

From the parts you tried to bury.

And yet, your love is avoidant.

Armoured in softness.

Pleasure without presence.

Warmth that vanishes by dawn.

Don’t write me into your thoughts,

Then leave me with your guilt.

You scented your exits with distance,

And still, I breathe you in.

I press your absence into my skin,

Release it like a needle’s sting.

RELEASE

For the love that follows,

Let them find me open to be held.

Let them find me open,

Without fear.

No more suffering as structure,

No more temples forged in pain.

Love grown in divine light,

In the arms of one who stays.

Tender in forgiveness.

Holy in our shame

A love that survives,

Because it dares to give itself away.

Through nerves it slides, raw and awake,

A queer pulse refusing to break.